


I'd Sooner Try Defying Gravity

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crack, F/M, Flying, Gen, time lords are weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:06:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29262465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: In search of breakfast on the TARDIS, Graham happens upon the Doctor hanging out in the corridors of the ship. Not overly weird... except for the fact that she's hovering.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Graham O'Brien, Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 45





	I'd Sooner Try Defying Gravity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Valc0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valc0/gifts).



> Pure silliness inspired by a discussion with the wonderful Val on Tumblr.

Graham is not having a good morning. The kettle had taken an unusually long time to boil, the only bacon he could find in the TARDIS fridge had been the weird blue stuff they’d picked up as a joke the previous week, the milk had turned into ice cubes in the bottle, and then he’d discovered that the eggs he’d brought from home had hatched into a bevy of small, multicoloured chicks, who are now pecking happily around the inside of one of the ship’s cupboards, cheeping as they do so. As he stalks through the corridors clutching a mug of coffee – at least he hopes that’s what it is; with this ship, you never know – in search of the Doc, he wonders how best to phrase his complaint.

She might be alien, he reasons, but surely even she needs to eat? She must understand the importance of sustenance, although as he puzzles over this, he realises he’s never actually _seen_ her eat anything more substantial than the odd ice cream or sweet treat on a day out. Perhaps she doesn’t need to eat, he wonders, although surely she must know that her friends do? Surely she must appreciate that they need certain things to stay alive, like oxygen and tea and bacon sarnies and biscuits that aren’t custard creams? Then again, he supposes, this _is_ the Doctor. She might be entirely oblivious about such matters; maybe she thinks that he, Ryan and Yaz exist solely on… alien protein bars, or whatever it is she must be secretly consuming to give her quite so much energy. She must be getting the fuel from _somewhere_ , and Graham wonders whether whatever the Doctor consumes would be safe for the team to eat, or whether he’d be instantly hospitalised for a sugar overdose of some kind.

Graham scowls down at his mug, in which a milky ice cube is rapidly melting, turning the dark liquid into a swirling caramel-coloured maelstrom. If after all this, the milk turns out to have gone off, he’s going to be both disappointed _and_ livid; he wonders about asking the Doc if they can go back to that planet that consisted entirely of coffee shops, then remembers the impact a single latte had had on her and makes a mental note to never mention the place ever again. Wonderful though the Doc is, she’s hard enough to keep up with on a normal day; with the addition of caffeine, they’d spent a hellish few hours sprinting after her, catching approximately two words in ten, and attempting to nod or shake their heads at the right moment as she’d strode around gesticulating wildly.

“I just want a bacon sarnie,” Graham mutters to himself, rehearsing what he’s going to tell the Time Lady when he finally finds her. Surely that’s not an unreasonable request? He doesn’t have the Doc down as one of these trendy vegan types, although if she is then the team’s consumption, the previous week, of an entire KFC bucket in her company had passed without comment or complaint. Had she eaten any of it? He tries to remember, but draws a blank; perhaps there isn’t enough sugar or e-numbers in fried chicken to whet her appetite. “Infinite bloody time machine, is that too much to ask?”

He stomps along another stretch of corridor, then chances taking a sip of coffee. To his considerable relief, it tastes sweet and strong, just how he likes it, and he takes another grateful gulp, offering a silent prayer of thanks to the TARDIS for allowing him this one small pleasure. Rounding a corner, he lets out a gleeful cry as he catches sight of a figure in the distance, and he breaks into a light, measured jog to catch up, keeping one eye on them and one on his mug, determined not to spill a drop of his precious beverage.

“Thank god,” he wheezes, catching up to the coatless Time Lady who is stood patiently beside her workshop, staring at him in amusement as he takes another fortifying swig of coffee. He’s getting too old for this running lark, if he’s honest, although the possibility of being rewarded for this little spurt of exercise with a cooked breakfast is sufficiently motivating. “Doc, I need to talk to you about something.”

“Everything alright?”

“Yeah, it’s just…” Graham pauses for a moment, looking her over with confusion. There’s something very strange about the Time Lady that he can’t quite put his finger on – has she changed her hair? Her t-shirt? Her braces? Has she –

No, he realises belatedly; she’s taller. He’s accustomed to her being somewhat shorter than him – which surprises him, if he’s honest; you don’t expect aliens to be of diminutive height compared to humans – but she’s… well, she’s taller than him. He frowns, because he’s never had her pegged as the sort of person to wear high heels, and it’s then that he chances a glance at her feet and nearly drops his mug in shock.

The Doc’s shoes are floating a solid six inches above the floor. The Time Lady is hovering, entirely unperturbed, in the corridor, looking at him as casual as you like, as though this is an entirely normal thing to be doing. He grips his mug a little tighter, wondering how best to raise the issue; does the Doc know? Is she aware she’s floating? Or has she made some kind of engineering error and messed with her own personal gravity in some way? Is it polite to point out? Or has the coffee caused him to hallucinate? Maybe he’s having a very intense staring match with a hatstand or something similarly inanimate. He really does need to speak to the Doc about the ship’s storage of dangerous chemicals, because this can’t be happening. Aliens don’t float, not even really weird ones who can change their faces and do weird psychic… stuff.

“You’re, erm,” he clears his throat, deciding to take a chance. “Doc, you’re…”

“What?” the Time Lady looks around them, panicked by his apparent concern. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re… sort of… floating?”

“Oh,” the Doc looks down at her feet, then ascends another couple of inches upwards, her head getting closer to the ceiling. “Sorry. Do you want me to land?”

“I… you’re…” Graham blinks at her, unsure what he wants. “Doc, since when was this a thing?”

“Since when was what a thing?” she asks, screwing up her face in concentration and descending until she’s only an inch or so off the floor, which places her roughly at Graham’s eye level. “You running?”

“No, you… floating, or whatever that is,” Graham blinks at her in consternation, then takes a shaky sip of coffee before continuing: “What’s that about?”

The Doc laughs, unfazed. “Oh, that. We learned at the Academy.”

“What academy?” Graham frowns, thrown by this revelation. “Are you telling me there’s a school full of… people like you?”

“You mean other Time Lords?” the Doc raises an eyebrow with fond exasperation. “Yes, there was. They weren’t very much like me, though… most of my people were more interested in war and politics and technological advancement than I was. I mucked about a lot… got threatened with expulsion a few times, but always managed to worm my way out of it, claim I was going to get my head down, all of that. I never _did_ , but I scraped by. Flying was probably one of the only lessons I really enjoyed.”

“Sorry, you’re telling me that you can actually _fly_?”

“Yeah,” the Doc shrugs. “It’s not overly difficult; it’s just manipulating forces and air currents and such. Once you know the basic maths and physics that underpin it, it’s actually quite straightforward. I could try to teach you, if you liked.”

“No ta,” Graham says emphatically, aghast at the mere prospect. “I think I’ll stick with walking, much less dangerous.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” the Doc assures him. “I’ve only broken a couple of bones, and they healed quickly enough.”

“Yeah, but you can do that regene-whatsit thingy. If I break a hip, that’s six weeks of bed rest, and while I’m not objecting to the idea of Ryan waiting on me hand, foot and finger, maybe getting a little bell to summon him with, and being treated like a king, I’m not a fan of being in pain, if I’m honest, Doc. And as for hospitals…” Graham shudders at the mere thought, reminded inescapably of his previous experiences: the endless corridors, the slightly-patronising staff, and the smell of bleach. “No thanks.”

The Doc smiles at him understandingly. “No flying lessons for Graham O’Brien,” she notes, then tips him a wink. “Might ask the others…”

“If you teach Ryan,” Graham implores, picturing Ryan tumbling out of the sky with a sense of horror. “Please, please, please do it on the planet of the pillows.”

The Doc laughs. “Request noted. I’m probably not the best teacher, anyway… I didn’t pay much attention once I’d mastered the basics. The Master… he was always better at it. He liked showing off just as much as I did, but he was more about the stylistic and technical details, so he could look impressive and _sound_ impressive too. He can do all sorts of complicated moves and things… he tried to teach me but I wasn’t much of a listener. I just wanted to swoop about showing off my awesome moves. Surprising, I know.”

“Shocking,” Graham deadpans. “Was he… were you two…”

“Oh, back then things were different,” the Doctor finally alights gracefully on the corridor floor, her expression becoming contemplative. “He was different. I was different. The world we lived in was different. It’s…” she grimaces, gesticulating vaguely with one hand. “Hard to explain. Hard to think about. It’s like a different me and a different him, back when he hadn’t done the awful things he has now. It was a better time. An easier time.”

“And that different him…”

“Oh, he always better than me at the Academy. He was competitive, so he liked working hard and making the effort because he knew it wound me up,” the Doc lets out a long breath, her gaze fixed on the corridor wall, but Graham knew that was undoubtedly miles away, reliving her youth. “He tended to actually try and _do_ the work, which is more than what I usually did, and his ideas – even though he was usually only parroting what they wanted to hear – were more aligned with what our people expected of us. I was very… vocal about my disapproval for some of what our people did, and they thought my fascination with other planets was just… appalling. Rebellious. Why would I want to explore other, primitive planets when I had everything I could possibly want or need on Gallifrey? They never understood my point of view, or why I despised them so much. My tutors despaired of me, quite honestly, but they tried their best.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Graham teases, and the Doc laughs, although her eyes are clouded by a sadness Graham understands all too well; a nostalgia for better times, when things must have been more straightforward. He tries to reconcile the insane, dangerous version of the Master that he’d met with the younger version of the Doc speaks of with such fondness, but he can’t quite imagine it. Nor can he imagine the Doc as a kid, let alone a teenager; she seems like the sort of person to have been old before her time, even in her youth. “I can’t imagine you being a model pupil.”

“I did my best but… wasn’t for me,” the Doc continues to stare into the middle distance for a moment, as though reliving something, then her attention snaps back to Graham and she forces a smile. “Now, was there something you needed? I imagine you don’t just run for anything.”

“Oh,” Graham blinks hard, looking down at his half-empty mug of rapidly-cooling coffee. “Right, yeah, about that… you need to have a word with your ship about its kitchen supplies…”


End file.
